Principal Computational Biologist; Systems Biologist

Principal Computational Biologist (Systems Biologist) (Under the leadership of Alex Kalinka)

Internally this is known as Principal Bioinformatician (Systems Biologist)

£57,000 - £70,900 plus benefits (includes up to 12% pension contribution and income protection)

Reports to: Group Leader - Quantitative Biology

Directorate: Research & Innovation

Contract: Permanent

Hours: Full time 35 hours per week

Location: Cambridge, Babraham Research Campus, Biomedical Campus (Limited flexibility 3-4 days per week on site)

Closing date: 25 January :55

This vacancy may close earlier if a high volume of applications is received or once a suitable candidate is found, therefore we strongly recommend that you apply early to avoid disappointment. Please let us know if there is anything about the recruitment process that you would like to discuss, in particular if there are any changes or adjustments that would make it easier for you to apply.

Please contact or as soon as possible.

Visa sponsorship: Cancer Research UK can consider visa sponsorship for this vacancy. If this applies to you, please ensure that this is clearly marked on your application.

Recruitment process: 1st stage interview via Microsoft Teams, 2nd stage will include a presentation followed by competency-based questions on-site

Interview date: We will be booking in 1st stage interviews on an ongoing basis, 2nd stage in planned for 3 and 6 of February

At Cancer Research UK, we exist to beat cancer.

Cancer Research Horizons are looking to recruit a passionate scientific professional to set and drive our computational strategy for integrating cancer systems biology methodologies into our drug discovery pipeline to motivate key decisions arising in the target , target validation, and disease positioning spaces.

About Cancer Research Horizons

As the world's biggest medical research charity, we've helped bring eleven new cancer drugs to market. However, there is still an urgent need to bring more effective treatments to patients faster.

We have recently developed a new approach to driving therapeutic innovation through the creation of Cancer Research Horizons (CRH). We have brought together Cancer Research UK's established drug discovery teams under one organisation and leadership team, combining our unique pipeline of cancer biology expertise and access to CRUK's world-class academic network, cutting edge technology platforms and clinical expertise to
1) bring new treatments to patients faster and
2) tackle the biggest challenges in discovering cancer drugs by seeking out more radical ideas and embracing risk in our bid to achieve success.

Based at sites in Cambridge, the CRUK Scotland Institute in Glasgow, and Newcastle University, Cancer Research Horizons employs 200 staff from both industrial and academic backgrounds

This is a new role for the team and real chance to make a tangible impact from day one. Utilise your expertise to support CRH in taking take a bigger, more holistic view of cancer. Build robust evidence packages and leverage cutting-edge systems-level predictive modelling to uncover the molecular pathways driving cancer development. You will become an integral part of the Cancer Research Horizon Drug Discovery team helping to progress novel cancer targets towards patient benefit.

Furthermore, we actively encourage our colleagues to celebrate our science, by attending conferences, presenting posters, giving talks at events and publishing papers.

What will I be doing?

Our new strategy sets out to bring deeper mechanistic understanding at the molecular and cellular level to all stages of projects, from idea to pre-clinical Candidate. Reporting directly to the Leader of our Quantitative Biology team, we are looking for an experienced computational biologist to develop a systems level approach to understanding cancer molecular networks to underpin predictive modelling of patient response that moves beyond single-gene biomarkers.

In this role you will take a mechanistic, causative approach to understanding how patient somatic mutations drive the development of cancer and work closely with functional genomics scientists to test novel hypotheses.

In this role you will:

• Set and drive our computational strategy for integrating cancer systems biology approaches to support key decisions relating to target , target validation, and disease positioning.
• Develop a patient-data focused biomarker strategy underpinned by a systems level understanding of cancer molecular pathways.
• Analyse patient genomic data to uncover key somatic driver mutations and integrate this information with molecular pathways to build a mechanistic understanding of cancer development.
• Provide deep expertise in computational biology and its role in oncology drug discovery.
• Foster a culture of continuous improvement for our computational and analytical approaches.
• Provide scientific and strategic leadership in computational biology across CRH.
• Communicate effectively to influence multiple stakeholders and collaborate…